freddy krueger

A new Purple Stuff episode is available to listen to NOW! After the seriously amazing response from our Friday the 13th episode, the logical next step is to head down to the boiler room. For those hoping to hear Matt and I have a horrific run-in with Freddy Krueger, you’re in luck!

Many of our local peeps are at the Monster Mania convention in New Jersey right now. While Matt and I didn’t make it to the con this time, we’re there in spirit. We may even invade your earbuds and bluetooth speakers in your hotel rooms while you’re drinking post-con. A show covering one of our favorite horror franchises is ready for you to hear. The NMOES series is so beloved, especially by our generation, and we wanted to record a show all about these films and the ways that they stuck with us all these years.

During our little trip to Elm Street, you’ll hear us discuss everything from cool movie moments, to action figures, to drinking with the Dream Warriors themselves. We’ll even give you a ton of fodder to discover for yourself on YouTube. We had a lot of fun recording this one, as we usually do, but if you’re a Freddy fanatic, this one is for you!

*WARNING* If you listen to this one late at night…whatever you do, DON’T FALL ASLEEP! Thanks for reading and listening to us. We appreciate all of your support and you can help out the show by subscribing on iTunes and leaving positive feedback for us!

After the latest Purple Stuff Podcast caused a bit of a controversy, it’s been requested that I explain myself.

Last Friday, Matt and I posted our Friday the 13th episode. It was basically our love letter to Friday the 13th. We gushed about all of our favorite Jason Voorhees related scenes, moments, and personal anecdotes. Toward the end, I shared a story about a time that I saw Freddy staring back at me in a French Friday the 13th Part V poster. At the time, no one could see what I saw. It became a joke about me being inebriated, but I was dead serious.

I was terrible at those Magic Eye posters that I referenced in the show. Back when they were popular, I was seriously like Willam from Mallrats, I could NEVER see the picture in them. The Mallrats one-sheet even had a Magic Eye poster on it for Pete’s sake and I couldn’t fathom that. Of course, art is open to interpretation. What one person sees may not be the same as what someone else sees. Once the latest Purple Stuff was posted, I was getting a flood of angry feedback as if I was trying to sell everyone snake oil. I want to make clear, and I also stated in the show, this is just my point of view. I have no idea who even made the poster from back then so it’s just my own little vision. Then again, when we’re hanging out Matt and I sometimes see Dewbacks resting in the street outside of my condo, so go figure.

Since I was put to the task by many online friends so far, I decided to try to attempt to explain what I’m seeing. If you can’t see it, I don’t blame you, but I hope you do, cause I think it’s more fun that way!

ENERGIZED is not a word that usually describes someone who just landed in Newark Airport. Or Newark Liberty International if you like verbose airport euphemisms, and yes that IS a euphemism. For The Sexy Armpit though, once I landed back in my angry, traffic-jammed state, I breathed the toxin-filled air in deeply and the gross atmosphere immediately began powering me up as if I was Mario after getting a fire flower. You’d think it would be the opposite, but no, while in Vegas, I didn’t feel like I had that extra kick. The city might be sinful, but it’s missing that special mutagenic compound found in New Jersey’s air, water, and judging by their extreme attitudes, our people. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun, so here’s a run down of our Vegas trip.

Miss Sexy Armpit and I have been to Vegas more times than you’ve been to your Great Aunt Esther’s house. And that’s just not right – you need to visit her more often you ungrateful prick. Who else will eat her 8 year old Lorna Doone cookies?

Since we’ve had many Vegas vacations in the past, and we’ve taken part in so much of what Vegas has to offer, we’re always looking for some shlocky and offbeat stuff to do. One of the first orders of business was finding the costume and decoration store, Halloween Mart, which I first read about in Dinosaur Dracula’s column Deadsites. It bills itself as the first online Halloween store. I felt it was too much of a coincidence that Matt wrote about this store recently and I was heading to Vegas, so I couldn’t be in Vegas and not drop in. The potential for this to be a wasted trip to a store was huge because Halloween shops often range from average, to exactly the same as every other Halloween store you’ve ever walked into. I’m happy to report this place does indeed rank in the top tier of Halloween stores, if not the best I’ve personally shopped at.

Why was it such a good place? First, it’s huge. Their selection of costumes and masks is as extensive as they tout on their site. They had a pretty typical selection of interior decorations in the back aisle, but when it comes to giant, over sized Halloween decorations and animatronics, they have it all locked up. Hung high up on the walls are several giant crazy looking ghouls and witches, but the real magic happens as you make your way to the back room. The back room is a showplace, but in effect it becomes its own little walk though dark ride. The space is dimly lit and filled with every moving skeleton, reanimating corpse, conjuring witch, and regurgitating demon child that you can imagine. It was so much fun walking through there. They even had a life size Captain Spaulding from House of 1,000 Corpses, as well as the most monstrous Freddy Krueger mask and glove that exists on earth, unless King Kong likes to do Freddy cosplay, then these would look like cute little fashionable earrings that he picked up at Claire’s in the mall.

Last year’s trip to Vegas didn’t afford me time to walk through Eli Roth’s Goretorium, so I made it a point to go there this year. I really wasn’t expecting this to be an overly impressive attraction and I was right. There’s two options: walk through with a “tour guide” during the day, or go through at night with actors. I was there during the day so I only had one choice, and I was fine with that because I was just curious to see how it compared to Times Scare in New York City. Even with Eli Roth’s name on the establishment, it was still just OK for me. The gory special effects in the scenery of each area you walk through were all intricate and well done, but the storyline was a bit lacking. This is definitely an attraction for the fans of torture porn rather than for someone seeking a good old fashioned haunted walk through and that’s exactly what I thought it would be. It was $10 bucks to get in because the girl at the entrance handed me a $5 dollar coupon, which was reasonable either way, but I would’ve went in regardless just to experience it. There’s not much to do for horror genre fans in the area so if you’re into haunted attractions and you’re planning on going to Vegas, give it a shot.

So your alien had a room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas?

Oh, just a typical day in Vegas walking down the strip.

Speaking of Bellagio, we decided to take a look at their plants. No I haven’t become a horticulturist or anything like that, it’s just that the Bellagio always has an elaborate setup in their conservatory and botanical gardens to reflect the flavor of each season. Unfortunately their Fall scene wasn’t setup yet, but they did have teaser art displayed on easels which looked really cool.

In between all this, we enjoyed a lot of good food, stopped into KISS Monster Mini Golf (again), and relaxed for a drink in Frankie’s Tiki Room. We also decided to head down to Freemont street late one night. A cover band, Arena, was playing hair band tunes and you guessed it, arena rock! We walked by just as they were playing “Rock and Roll All Night,” from KISS and Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me.” It was here that I truly noticed that downtown Vegas is crawling with umm…unique people. These characters included a drunken Santa who meandered into the crowd to watch Arena. He and his drunken buddies created their own mosh pit of sorts. One guy was just way too into dancing around to Poison that there was no way possible that he wasn’t insanely super high on very strong, illegal narcotics.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyySAYWlp-0?rel=0]

The centerpiece of our trip was, Pinup, a show at the Stratosphere starring Playboy Playmate Claire Sinclar. We had to waste some time before the show so Miss Sexy Armpit played a few slots. From far away I noticed a game that reminded me of one of the thousands of versions of Wheel of Fortune that every casino seems to have, but as we walked closer I realized it was a cool looking Twilight Zone video slot machine that I had never seen before. The machine was pretty damn flashy and although it’s usually forbidden to take photos on the casino floor, I snapped a couple nonchalantly because I thought it was too cool to pass up.

I asked Miss Armpit if she would mind playing it so I could see how the bonuses looked and what episodes they referenced. As she sat down I noticed that the guy sitting to the left of her on the 2-person machine reminded me of someone. It came to me rather quickly too, which convinced me that it had to be him. It was Richard Blade. Right now, you’re probably saying to yourself internally “Who the f*ck is Richard Blade?” He was only the charismatic HOST OF DANCE TV in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Blade was also a popular radio DJ in L.A in the ’80s as well as a host of a couple of music themed TV shows. Shame on you if you don’t know him or teach a Learning Annex class on the study of his career like I do.

I hadn’t drank any liquor since lunch that day which was a dessert version of a White Russian at Max Brenner’s, so I knew I wasn’t having some sort of alcohol infused ’80s delusion. Blade wore a blue blazer and Ugg boots with his jeans tucked into them. He was chain smoking and had fairly more voluminous hair than I remembered him having. Bastard kept getting bonuses too. Then I started to wonder why the real Richard Blade, a classy man of refined taste, would even be playing a Twilight Zone slot machine so intensely at 9:45 PM on Monday night. Maybe I DID enter the Twilight Zone? My brain was split on this, forget gray matter, it was all patches of red and blue as if my mind was voting on if this was really Richard Blade or not.

Finally, I began to lean toward the fact that this guy was either really the best Richard Blade cosplayer of all time or a total impostor. I was tipped off by one major component that Richard Blade assuredly has: an accent. As much as I sooo wanted to believe that it was the real Richard Blade, this dude was just a regular schmo with a terrible fashion sense. Damn you, Richard Blade impostor, you would’ve been the highlight of our trip.

Often, when something “limited edition” comes down the pike I just have to own it. A prime example is the KILL tour t-shirt that was released as a special edition by Fright Rags recently. Fright Rags is known for printing up genius, one of a kind horror tees, and this may be one of the best they ever conceived. Check it out and you can be the judge of that.

The KILL Tour T-shirt is inspired by the Destroyer album cover art from my favorite band, KISS. Anytime the world of horror combines with KISS, it’s a win-win. The t-shirt art includes Freddy, Chucky, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface taking the place of KISS. What knocks this baseball style tee right out of the old Roosevelt Stadium is KILL’s tour stops are listed on the back just like an old vintage concert t-shirt! On KILL’s Decades of Destruction Tour, in honor of the release of the original Friday the 13th film, the band’s May 9th, 1980 tour stop was at Crystal Lake…in NEW JERSAAAY!

Previous releases that I also HAD TO HAVE included G.I Jason (the GI Joe/Jason Voorhees mashup) and one of their beautiful Friday the 13th The Final Chapter tees. Artist Jason Edmiston was responsible for the artwork on both the GI Jason tee as well as this KILL tour shirt, but the new one may take the cake. It’s a dead heat for me. What do you think? If you own the regular black t-shirt version of “KILL,” it’s slightly more accurate to the Destroyer cover, but I opted for the larger KILL logo on the baseball tee.

You can now see why I felt so compelled to make this shirt part of my wardrobe. But surprisingly, this shirt wasn’t released without criticism since it’s hard to please everyone. The flack on this shirt was that Michael Myers should’ve been in the artwork instead of Chucky. I’m not sure why that happened, but if Myers was on the shirt instead it would indeed be perfect. I’m not complaining one bit though, I think it was an awesome idea and I’d like to see more cool ideas like this from Fright Rags.

Living through numerous Halloweens has translated to me holding many solo horror movie marathons. I’m sure some of you can relate. But what should you do when you’ve exhausted all of your movie options? That is a question I’ve pondered for a while now, and I finally share my discovery with you. If you are looking to spice up your Halloween viewing, read on!

You’ve seen all the Nightmares, all the Fridays, and all the Halloweens, right? Well what if there were prequels that you never knew about? What if there were top quality extensions of those franchises to be seen? Based in New Jersey, Blinky Productions fills those voids! In addition to their original productions, they make independent short and feature length films that incorporate the characters we love. Some of their films revolve around superheroes, but many of them star horror icons. Usually their type of output would be considered “fan-film,” but the quality of their films is superior and sets them apart from most of the fan made stuff I’ve seen on YouTube.

Blinky Productions films have been on my radar for years now, but I never got around to watching some of them until last year. At a New Jersey Batman Convention that I went to, I finally got to meet the man behind Blinky, a friendly movie making mastermind and Jersey guy, Chris Notarile. I picked up a few of their DVDs including one I’ll be reviewing in the future, but for now I’ll tell you about the one that has become a part of my annual Halloween viewing.

I snatched up a great little trilogy of horror shorts to add to my collection. Delving further into the mythos of the Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween franchises, these shorts make me wonder why these franchises aren’t releasing good quality big budget installments when Chris does it with almost no budget in comparison. What’s great about these films is that you don’t have to lower your expectations before watching them as you do with many independent fan made shorts.

Out of the 3 shorts, the one I felt was the most interesting was KRUEGER: A TALE FROM ELM STREET. The short gives us a front row seat during one of Krueger’s interrogations, before he was “burnt up like a weenie” if I may quote the Fresh Prince. MYERS: RISE OF THE BOOGEYMAN adds a cool little twist to the Halloween lore and I enjoyed it. The only one that fell a little short for me was VOORHEES: BORN ON A FRIDAY. It deals with Mrs. Voorhees tracking down one of the very girls who was responsible for her son’s drowning. You can watch all of them rather quickly which works if you’re planning a mini-marathon. For instance, watching the Krueger short before watching your favorite Nightmare on Elm Street film will enhance your experience!

The Jersey based Blinky Productions’ motto is “High Quality Films…Without the Budget.” In addition to their horror inspired films, they’ve also created shorts featuring The Punisher, Batman, Flash, and Catwoman among so many others. Their original productions are badass as well (i.e METHODIC) so check them out! Up next I’m going to watch FRIDAY THE 31st: MICHAEL VS. JASON!! In the mean time though, go enjoy the wet-dream of horror fan films at their YouTube page, and by that I mean Freddy vs. Jason vs. Leatherface vs. Pinhead and many more!

Here’s a Halloween themed meme started by our friend Becca at No Smoking in the Skullcave. Visit Becca’s blog and shop when you’re through here! Feel free to join the meme and answer and post on your blog!

1. What is the worst treat to get when trick-or-treating?For me, the worst was any hard candy or stuff that stuck in my teeth. I especially hated when I got sugar daddies that were hard as rocks.

2. What character from any horror film would you most like to play?Sammi Curr, and even though it’s not truly a horror film, Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

3. Would you rather be a zombie, alien, or psycho? (why)Definitely a Psycho…because there’s probably less work to put into it. Not a lot of makeup or costume shopping involved. Psychos are usually low maintenance!

4. How many Halloween, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street movies combined do you have on DVD?Hmm…let me think. I own every NMOES including Freddy vs. Jason as well as F13 part 1,2,3,4, and 6.

5. What is the scariest movie you have ever seen?I don’t get scared easily since I started watching horror films when I was about 4 or 5. My parents were cool with it. How can you tell a kid who loves Freddy Krueger that he can’t watch the movies? My friends weren’t allowed, but I was!!! I am more creeped out my psychological and atmospheric thrillers and horror films with less blood and gore and more mindf*cks. I’d say classic films like The Shining, 1984’s Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist, Poltergeist and newer stuff like The Blair Witch Project and Lake Mungo.

6. Lamest costume you have worn on Halloween?For my first Halloween my mom dressed me up as one of Santa’s helpers, but that was completely involuntary. I wish I could go back in time and tell my mom that it was totally the wrong month for that.

7. Favorite Halloween treat?A king size Snickers. To me, that was the grandaddy of all Halloween treats. And actual Reese’s cups, not the fun size ones.

8. Friendly-faced jack o’lantern or scary one?SCARY!!! The more sinister the better!

9. Have you ever had nightmares about a scary movie character chasing you?If I did, I don’t really remember. I was never so scared of a horror movie character to the point where I’d dream about them chasing me.

10. Best thing about Halloween?The weather, the atmosphere, the jack-o-lanterns, horror movies, the costumes, the parties, the house displays/decorations, and the memories.

11. Strangest Halloween custom you’ve heard of?Plenty of people I know basically ignore the Halloween season altogether. That’s not fun at all.

12. Person in your family who most likes Halloween (not counting yourself)?Believe it or not, no one in my family really loves Halloween like I do, of course my little niece and nephews like it because of the candy, but not so much the haunting aspect of it. So, I’d definitely say my girlfriend since she loves it and she’s definitely part of The Sexy Armpit family.

13. Are you superstitious? If so, name at least one superstition of yours.I always seem to say that I’m NOT superstitious but I think we all are a little bit superstitious. There have been countless times that black cats have ran across the street in front of my car while driving, probably more often than most people. Oh, and I DO have a rabbit’s foot and I love the Stevie Wonder song, so I guess I actually am superstitious.

Horror buffs pined to see Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash in a Triple Threat Match. Eventually they got their chance in comic book form, but even as a huge horror fan I was never too interested in seeing Ash take on Freddy and Jason. I was actually left quite satisfied with the 2003 film, Freddy vs. Jason. It never seems to get much credit, but it stands up nicely with the rest of the respective films in each series. That was a feat considering it was made basically 10 years after the final films in the Freddy and Jason series (except Jason X).

After Freddy vs. Jason, there isn’t much more ground to cover. As the character of Freddy trades down to being inhabited by a new actor in the upcoming reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason is left scratching his hockey mask with his machete. Who better to face off with Camp Crystal Lake’s Jason Voorhees than New Jersey’s own superhero, The Toxic Avenger? As previously detailed at The Sexy Armpit here and here, the Friday the 13th series has several ties to the Garden State, so this sounds like a dream match to me! Of course, when you bring Lloyd Kaufman’s Toxie into the equation, there’s bound to be comedy involved, which works perfectly because Jason is usually the straight man. Imagine the possibilities? We may have the first Abbott and Costello of the horror genre on our hands.

Notice how Toxie sort of looks like Jason without his mask on? At the very least, I’d love to see this play out in a late night HBO animated movie or an online comic book mini series. Who do you think would win this freakish face off?

I first saw Monica Keena on Dawson’s Creek. Ah crap, I guess that means that I actually watched that show. Yup, I did, but only the first few seasons, I swear! A few years later she also starred in one of my favorite shows ever, Judd Apatow’s Undeclared. Undeclared was another show that suffered from low ratings, but I was a staunch believer and was sad to see it go. Luckily, Keena didn’t disappear with the cancellation of Undeclared. The girl who would soon be known for chopping Freddy Krueger’s head off was born in New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn, NY.

Keena also has another Jersey connection. She provided the voice of Trishelle in The Sopranos: Road to Respect video game. The game was released for PS2 in 2006. Several people have told me that the game sucked, but I’ve yet to play it. I’ve also yet to play with Keenas boobs but that’s a whole other post. I can see it now “The Sexy Armpit: Road to Monica Keena’s Boobies.”

For a while, before she apparently had a botched plastic surgery, I thought Keena was stunning in every film or TV show I saw her in. Dammit! I even sat through the abysmal Man of the House because of her! On the other hand, Fifty Pills is still an underrated film. I also can’t forget her hot little stint on Entourage either. Unless she has some sort of miraculous resurgence, or Tarantino tweezes her ass out of Hollywood limbo, it seems like Monica Keena’s most memorable role will always be as Lori Campbell in 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason. Next up, Keena will star in the remake of Night of the Demons along with Shannon Elizabeth, Eddie Furlong, and Diora Baird.

“I’ve only seen two horror movies in my life, and one of them was Nightmare on Elm Street, when I was about eight years old. And it scared me so much that I couldn’t sleep for two or three months. So I always swore I would never do a horror movie. It was very cathartic to be working with Freddy and to realize he’s not a real person. Robert Englund is a really sweet guy under all the make-up.”

Illustration is in quotes because I don’t think this poorly drawn picture that I made when I was 9 years old deserves that description. Drawing was never one of my strong points, but what this haunted house lacks in technical accuracy it excels in spirit. My passion for horror began at a young age and when October rolled around, there were many assignments in school that involved Halloween and all things spooky. This haunted house was the result of an assignment my teacher gave us: Draw a haunted house and then write a story describing the house using similies.

I ate assigments like this up. I remember that I couldn’t wait to get down to business. I also figured that I had an “A” in the bag since I was one of the few kids in my class obsessed with watching horror movies, not to mention that I was one of the only ones who had parents that allowed me to. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

I jam packed every creature that might be associated with a haunted house. This drawing included ghosts, spiders, candles, 8-bit mini Frankensteins, bats, talking pumpkins, Jason and Freddy, and of course…that other thing you have NO IDEA about. The thing standing to the left of Jason is actually supposed to be Chucky from Child’s Play. The other conundrum is standing outside the house perched on top of a coffin. Yes folks, that’s supposed to be a werewolf who, poor thing, has no arms. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure I left Dracula out because he was still chilling in his coffin. Since the moon is clearly visible on the top left, it’s high time he got his blood sucking ass outta there.

Nothing would have broken my listlessness upon hearing the news that one of my favorite horror franchises would be getting the goldigging Hollywood reboot. At that point, not even Jason Voorhees stabbing me through my brain couldn’t have elicited a response from me. In fact, Jason himself could’ve launched himself out of Crystal Lake, jogged to my condo, crashed through my window, and took off his hockey mask and told me personally that Michael Bay would be bringing him to life once again and I would’ve shook my head somberly with a question mark floating over my head. I have to accept that remakes are and always will be a fact of life, and I have to take the good and take the bad like Tootie did.

That’s right folks, we must gauge the threat level of all these ridiculous remakes, prequels, and reboots. My lack of enthusiasm level was at SEVERE when I first heard the news of the Friday the 13th reboot, but after seeing the film, the level dropped to a breezy blue which is merely referred to as GUARDED. What was one of the reasons for the decrease? Why of course it was the fact that the filmmakers didn’t ignore the original film’s New Jersey roots!

Originally, I read on several websites that the new F13 would not be filmed in New Jersey, but in Texas. My mind conjured up the idea that this new version would reference Texas as the new home of Camp Crystal Lake, which worried me to the point where I didn’t even want to see the film. It wasn’t much of a stretch since the filmmakers may have wanted to pay tribute to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was appreciative when I saw the scene where the gang drives to a convenience store for some gas and munchies. Their black Escalade was all duked out in a couple of New Jersey license plates! I felt like 3PO after an oil bath.

I can’t speak for the legions of fans of Freddy and Jason, but personally I cringe at the fact that movies from my youth have been primped and given cute little bows like when the Cowardly Lion was turned into a sweet little girl after a makeover in the Wizard of Oz. What little bit of ferocity he exuded was depleted right at that moment. At one time, ’80s horror franchises had more in common with the Scarecrow. After a while he kept losing his hay and stuffing, and if he didn’t get re-stuffed he wouldn’t survive. I suppose if Freddy didn’t start wearing cool sunglasses on the beach, playing video games, and uttering cringeworthy puns that made Robin the Boy Wonder seem like he was doing amateur night at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, NJ, then maybe the Nightmare on Elm Street series would’ve died after Dream Warriors. Jason Voorhees was the wiser of the two since he packed up his shit and went into space! He knew that only something that outlandish would spell certain doom for his series. While not completely horrible, 2009’s Friday the 13th could have been more memorable, but it was a satisfying film, and it gave NJ the props it deserved.